Dawn
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 23: John McGuire
JOHN McGUIRE
So imperative was the knock at the kitchen door at six o’clock that July morning that Susan almost fell down the back stairs in her haste to obey the summons.
“Lan’ sakes, Mis’ McGuire, what a start you did give—why, Mis’
McGuire, what is it?” she interrupted herself, aghast, as Mrs.
McGuire, white-faced and wild-eyed, swept past her and began to pace
up and down the kitchen floor, moaning frenziedly:
“It’s come—it’s come—I knew’t would come. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“What’s come?”
“Oh, John, John, my boy, my boy!”
“You don’t mean he’s—dead?”
“No, no, worse than that, worse than that!” moaned the woman, wringing her hands. “Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?”
With a firm grasp Susan caught the twisting fingers and gently but resolutely forced their owner into a chair.
“Do? You’ll jest calm yourself right down an’ tell me all about it, Mis’ McGuire. This rampagin’ ‘round the kitchen like this don’t do no sort of good, an’ it’s awful on your nerves. An’ furthermore an’ moreover, no matter what’t is that ails your John, it can’t be worse’n death; for while there’s life there’s hope, you know.”
“But it is, it is, I tell you,” sobbed Mrs. McGuire still swaying her body back and forth. “Susan, my boy is—BLIND.” With the utterance of the dread word Mrs. McGuire stiffened suddenly into rigid horror, her eyes staring straight into Susan’s.
“MIS’ MCGUIRE!” breathed Susan in dismay; then hopefully, “But maybe ‘twas a mistake.”
The woman shook her head. She went back to her swaying from side to side.
“No, ‘twas a dispatch. It came this mornin’. Just now. Mr. McGuire was gone, an’ there wasn’t anybody there but the children, an’ they’re asleep. That’s why I came over. I HAD to. I had to talk to some one!”
“Of course, you did! An’ you shall, you poor lamb. You shall tell me all about it. What was it? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I just know he’s blind, an’ that he’s comin’ home. He’s on his way now. My John—blind! Oh, Susan, what shall I do, what shall I do?”
“Then he probably ain’t sick, or hurt anywheres else, if he’s on his way home—leastways, he ain’t hurt bad. You can be glad for that, Mis’ McGuire.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Maybe he is. It didn’t say. It just said blinded,” chattered Mrs. McGuire feverishly. “They get them home just as soon as they can when they’re blinded. We were readin’ about it only yesterday in the paper—how they did send ‘em home right away. Oh, how little I thought that my son John would be one of ‘em—my John!”
“But your John ain’t the only one, Mis’ McGuire. There’s other Johns, too. Look at our Keith here.”
“I know, I know.”
“An’ I wonder how he’ll take this—about your John?”
“HE’LL know what it means,” choked Mrs. McGuire.
“He sure will—an’ he’ll feel bad. I know that. He ain’t hisself, anyway, these days.”
“He ain’t?” Mrs. McGuire asked the question abstractedly, her mind plainly on her own trouble; but Susan, intent on HER trouble, did not need even the question to spur her tongue.
“No, he ain’t. Oh, he’s brave an’ cheerful. He’s awful cheerful, even cheerfuler than he was a month ago. He’s too cheerful, Mis’ McGuire. There’s somethin’ back of it I don’t like. He—”
But Mrs. McGuire was not listening. Wringing her hands she had sprung to her feet and was pacing the floor again, moaning: “Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?” A minute later, only weeping afresh at Susan’s every effort to comfort her, she stumbled out of the kitchen and hurried across the yard to her own door.
Watching her from the window, Susan drew a long sigh.
“I wonder how he WILL take—But, lan’ sakes, this ain’t gettin’ my breakfast,” she ejaculated with a hurried glance at the clock on the little shelf over the stove.
There was nothing, apparently, to distinguish breakfast that morning from a dozen other breakfasts that had gone before. Keith and his father talked cheerfully of various matters, and Susan waited upon them with her usual briskness. If Susan was more silent than usual, and if her eyes sought Keith’s face more frequently than was her habit, no one, apparently, noticed it. Susan did fancy, however, that she saw a new tenseness in Keith’s face, a new nervousness in his manner; but that, perhaps, was because she was watching him so closely, and because he was so constantly in her mind, owing to her apprehension as to how he would take the news of John McGuire’s blindness.
From the very first Susan had determined not to tell her news until after Mr. Burton had left the house. She could not have explained it even to herself, but she had a feeling that it would be better to tell Keith when he was alone. She planned, also, to tell him casually, as it were, in the midst of other conversation—not as if it were the one thing on her mind. In accordance with this, therefore, she forced herself to finish her dishes and to set her kitchen in order before she sought Keith in the living-room.
But Keith was not in the living-room; neither was he on the porch or anywhere in the yard.
With a troubled frown on her face Susan climbed the stairs to the second floor. Keith’s room was silent, and empty, so far as human presence was concerned. So, too, was the studio, and every other room on that floor.
At the front of the attic stairs Susan hesitated. The troubled frown on her face deepened as she glanced up the steep, narrow stairway.
She did not like to have Keith go off by himself to the attic, and already now twice before she had found him up there, poking in the drawers of an old desk that had been his father’s. He had shut the drawers quickly and had laughingly turned aside her questions when she had asked him what in the world he was doing up there. And he had got up immediately and had gone downstairs with her. But she had not liked the look on his face. And to-day, as she hesitated at the foot of the stairs, she was remembering that look. But for only a moment. Resolutely then she lifted her chin, ran up the stairs, and opened the attic door.
Over at the desk by the window there was a swift movement—but not so swift that Susan did not see the revolver pushed under some loose papers.
“Is that you, Susan?” asked Keith sharply. “Yes, honey. I jest came up to get somethin’.”
Susan’s face was white like paper, and her hands were cold and shaking, but her voice, except for a certain breathlessness, was cheerfully steady. With more or less noise and with a running fire of inconsequent comment, she rummaged among the trunks and boxes, gradually working her way to, ward the desk where Keith still sat.
At the desk, with a sudden swift movement, she thrust the papers to one side and dropped her hand on the revolver. At the same moment Keith’s arm shot out and his hand fell, covering hers.
She saw his young face flush and harden and his mouth set into stern lines.
“Susan, you’ll be good enough, please, to take your hand off that,” he said then sharply.
There was a moment’s tense silence. Susan’s eyes, agonized and pleading, were on his face. But Keith could not see that. He could only hear her words a moment later—light words, with a hidden laugh in them, yet spoken with that same curious breathlessness.
“Faith, honey, an’ how can I, with your own hand holdin’ mine so tight?”
Keith removed his hand instantly. His set face darkened.
“This is not a joke, Susan, and I shall have to depend on your honor to let that revolver stay where it is. Unfortunately I am unable to SEE whether I am obeyed or not.”
It was Susan’s turn to flush. She drew back at once, leaving the weapon uncovered on the desk between them.
“I’m not takin’ the pistol, Keith.” The laugh was all gone from Susan’s voice now. So, too, was the breathlessness. The voice was steady, grave, but very gentle. “We take matches an’ pizen an’ knives away from CHILDREN—not from grown men, Keith. The pistol is right where you can reach it—if you want it.”
She saw the fingers of Keith’s hand twitch and tighten. Otherwise there was no answer. After a moment she went on speaking.
“But let me say jest this: ‘tain’t like you to be a—quitter, Keith.” She saw him wince, but she did not wait for him to speak. “An’ after you’ve done this thing, there ain’t any one in the world goin’ to be so sorry as you’ll be. You mark my words.”
It was like a sharp knife cutting a taut cord. The tense muscles relaxed and Keith gave a sudden laugh. True, it was a short laugh, and a bitter one; but it was a laugh.
“You forget, Susan. If—if I carried that out I wouldn’t be in the world—to care.”
“Shucks! You’d be in some world, Keith Burton, an’ you know it. An’ you’d feel nice lookin’ down on the mess you’d made of THIS world, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, if I was LOOKING, I’d be SEEING, wouldn’t I?” cut in the youth grimly. “Don’t forget, Susan, that I’d be SEEING, please.”
“Seein’ ain’t everything, Keith Burton. Jest remember that. There is some things you’d rather be blind than see. An’ that’s one of ‘em. Besides, seein’ ain’t the only sensible you’ve got, an’ there’s such a lot of things you can do, an’—”
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